


Hips and Ribs

by letsgogetlost



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Soulmate AU, and some other relationships get mentioned, endgame JJSeung, most of the skaters show up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-19 12:25:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12410274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letsgogetlost/pseuds/letsgogetlost
Summary: Almost everyone in the world has soulmate words that appear somewhere on their bodies when they’re adolescents. They’re the first phrase your soulmate will say to you when you meet.But what if you don’t like your words?And what if the person who says them doesn’t like you?(JJSeung soulmate AU, with a side of amicable JJBella parting, for reasons that will become clear.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought I'd write a Soulmate AU, and yet here we are.
> 
> My first YOI fic, and it's been a while since I watched the series, so if you notice mistakes, please let me know.
> 
> Finished writing, so I'll put it up over the next few days.

Lee Seung-gil wasn’t a social guy. All the athletes he competed against were well aware of that. Whether they knew him from juniors or had only encountered him since he’d joined the Grand Prix circuit that season, his views on socialization were pretty clear. Once, Leo and Pichit had sat together and tried to count up how many words he’d ever said to them. Neither of them had managed to get over ten. He was even more taciturn than Otabek Altin, and that was saying something.

Jean-Jacques Leroy, on the other hand, was more social than several of the other skaters put together. He barely ever seemed to _stop_ talking.

It shouldn’t have surprised anyone, then, that when they finally met, it was a case of unstoppable force vs. immovable object. It wasn’t going to end well.

 

It happened at the Rostelecom Cup, the day before the short program. They’d all been practicing, and now were collapsed in a lounge, waiting for the Zamboni to finish clearing the ice so they could go back out. Seung-gil was sitting alone, as he often did, reading something on his phone. He half glanced up when someone new came into the room, then went back to his phone, showing no interest in the newcomer - Jean-Jacques Leroy, riding a wave of giddy energy as usual.

JJ greeted a few of the other skaters, loudly - always loudly. Then he paused, and Seung-gil’s shoulders tensed like he could feel JJ’s eyes on him. And then JJ came bounding across the room, and stopped in front of Seung-gil. 

Seung-gil could just see the toes of his sneakers in his peripheral vision. He didn’t look up, but said, quickly - before JJ could get a word in edgewise - “I’m not interested in you.”

JJ stepped back, his toes disappearing from Seung-gil’s view, but he didn’t leave. There was a silence long enough to make Seung-gil’s skin start to itch, and then JJ spoke, his voice more subdued - the lowest, quietest anyone in the room had ever heard. “No. That can’t be right.”

Seung-gil’s head snapped up, and their eyes met for an instant before JJ turned and fled the room. Seung-gil watched him go, frozen in place, phone dangling from his fingers - it was only when it dropped from his hand and into his lap that he jumped, snapped out of it, and then got up quickly and left the room, headed in the opposite direction from JJ.

 

Back in the lounge, a few of the other skaters shifted in their seats. “What was _that_?” Yuri asked, frowning at the doors JJ and Seung-gil had exited through.

“Did that sound like a Soul Conversation to anyone else?” Yuuri asked, looking to the others.

Yuri scoffed. “What would you know about that?”

“I’ve heard them before!”

“It couldn’t be,” Emil put in from across the room. “He has a fiancée. Isabella. She’s all over his Instagram.”

“Has anyone seen their soulmarks, though?” Yuuri asked, making Yuri scoff again - but everyone shook their heads.

“They’re _so_ in love, though,” Emil said, and pulled up JJ’s Instagram on his phone to show a post - a selfie of JJ and Isabella. They did look like they adored each other.

“You can love someone even if they’re not your soulmate,” Michele grumbled from his seat, face growing stormy in his familiar way. “Some bonds are even closer than soul bonds.”

Yuri rolled his eyes and stood up. “JJ and Seung-gil are just weirdos, we all already knew that. I’m going back out on the ice.”

 

Seung-gil had headed towards the ice when he left, and he was already skating when the others got there. JJ, however, didn’t appear again. None of the other skaters saw him until the next day, when he showed up to the warmup in typical form - loud statements and music and JJ hands. Back to normal.

Neither of them seemed entirely on top of their game during the warmup that day, though. JJ was erratic and full of energy - even more so than usual - and rustier than the others, having missed half of the practice period the day before. Seung-gil, meanwhile, seemed distracted, and jumpy - he was avoiding even looking at the other skaters, which wasn’t unusual for him, but he also shied away if any of them came close to him on the ice. He obviously wanted to be left alone. 

No one seemed to notice the looks the two other skaters gave each other, out there on the ice. They were only tiny glances - furtive, quick, and frowning.

The short programs went all right, over all. But the next day, in the free, it all went to hell for Seung-gil. 

He hadn’t slept much, lying awake worrying about his scores, knowing how close he was cutting it. And too aware of what had happened at the practice session, his body tense at the thought of it. 

When he fell on that quad, he knew that was the end - unless one of the others did even worse. And that was asking a lot. It was a strong field, especially that late in the Grand Prix season.

He watched the other skaters from backstage, on one of the little monitors set up in the warmup area. He kept his jacket pulled tight around his shoulders, concealing his sparkling costume, fighting off a chill that came along with the leaden feeling in the pit of his stomach - the feeling that he’d messed up, and that it was all his fault. His, and JJ’s. Because why now, why in the middle of one of the most important competitions of his year? And how… JJ already _had_ a soulmate.

He shivered under his jacket, and then there was JJ, skating out to center ice, all huge grin and J hands, all confidence, not a glimmer of the confusion and overwhelm Seung-gil was feeling. And if he had bobbles in his routine, if it wasn’t perfect, it didn’t matter. He was going to the podium, and Seung-gil wasn’t going to the final. 

Seung-gil couldn’t bring himself to hate him for it, though. There was something to JJ’s skating, to the grin, that attitude. Seung-gil had always liked it, despite himself. Always seen his opposite in JJ, in a skater with such a big personality, such an ability to connect with the crowd. He’d always found it compelling. And maybe… 

But no. It was just because they were competitors. Because JJ had all the qualities he didn’t, and he knew it. And if there was something else, it didn’t matter, did it. JJ was loudly, happily in love with a woman, and he’d looked horrified, in that moment in the warmup room when their eyes met, after that exchange of words.

Whatever this was, it was one of those things that wouldn’t work out. Seung-gil couldn’t even manage to feel surprised about it. He’d always expected something like this, since the moment in his early teens when the words had shown up on his skin in English, before he’d even known enough of the language to understand them. _No. It can’t be you._ He’d been the only person he knew whose words weren’t in Korean. His mother had been so upset. And he, the way he was… even then, he’d known it was doubtful it would be a good thing, that it would work out with whoever it had ended up being. Once he understood the words, he only doubted it more. 

But he couldn’t help the little seed of disappointment in his stomach, the one threatening to grow and bloom now, competing with the disappointment over his skate and threatening to overwhelm him.

He cried as he left the arena, and he blamed it on exhaustion.

 

The next day and the banquet were a blur. He hadn’t slept again, because JJ’s presence - sleeping somewhere nearby, in the same hotel - sat heavy in his mind. He skipped the gala, feeling tired and a little sick, and at the banquet he sat at his table and looked at his phone and didn’t talk to anyone. He didn’t hear anything from JJ, and he didn’t try to reach out, either, and if JJ even glanced his way at the banquet, he wasn’t aware of it. 

He and his coach left Moscow to fly back to Seoul early the next morning, to his immense relief. He wanted to try to just ignore what had happened. But his distraction and bad feelings didn’t stop when he’d gotten back to Korea. He threw himself into his training even more than usual, and it didn’t help. He couldn’t stop thinking about JJ. His skating. The horror in his expression when their eyes had met.

 

He watched the Grand Prix Final. Part of him really didn’t want to, but he had to. He had to evaluate the competition - he could see them with clearer eyes when he wasn’t there skating against them, comparing their every mistake to his own, calculating his own fluctuating place on the leaderboard. And he wanted to see JJ skate. Despite everything, he really wanted that.

By the end of the competition, it was almost dawn in Korea and Seung-gil felt sick to his stomach. For a moment he tried to convince himself that it was jealousy because the others were at the final and he wasn’t, but he knew very well that that wasn’t it at all. He felt sick for JJ, for how much he had struggled. And that wasn’t a normal feeling, not at all. He always cared how he compared to the other skaters when they rose and fell in the standings. But he’d never cared how _they_ felt about it before.

Now he cared. And that, more than anything, was what made him realize that he wasn’t going to be able to shake this. That it wasn’t a mistake, a coincidence, any of the things he’d tried to tell himself.

It was real, and he cared, and he was in trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

The problem with realizing that he cared - realizing that JJ probably really was his soulmate, and that it mattered, and that he needed to do something about it - was that Seung-gil didn’t know what, exactly, he could do. JJ was in Canada. He was in Korea. JJ probably wasn’t interested in pursuing it. And he didn’t feel comfortable just contacting him out of the blue.

So instead he just fretted about it. His sleep suffered, and his training suffered. About a week after the Grand Prix Final he almost broke his wrist falling on a triple jump that was usually simple for him. His coach, frustrated, told him to take the rest of the day off, and the day after, too. He went home, walked Elvis, iced his sprained wrist and the huge bruise blooming on his hip from the fall, brooded, and fell asleep on the couch with Elvis mostly on top of him, slowly crushing his ribcage.

He woke up when Elvis shoved off him and ran to the door, barking.

The doorbell rang. It must have been what set Elvis off. He forgot his wrist was sprained, tried to push up on it, gasped, failed, tried again with the other, groaned, but managed it. Everything ached and his hip was wet - he’d let the ice melt on it. He stumbled to the door, bleary in the _what year is it?_ way of unexpected naps, chided Elvis and told him to sit, and opened the door.

For an instant, he thought he might faint, everything going white like he’d stood up too quickly.

Maybe he had.

Or maybe this was a dream?

But no. Everything still ached. His wrist hurt. Elvis was whining, wanting to make a new friend. And Jean-Jacques Leroy was standing in his doorway.

“Ah…” Seung-gil breathed, eyebrows wrinkling together. In his week and a half of fretting, of going over endless scenarios, _Jean-Jacques Leroy just shows up unannounced at my apartment_ had not been one of the ones he’d considered.

“Hi,” JJ said. He had a backpack hanging off one shoulder. He looked tired. “Um… I think we need to talk?”

Seung-gil nodded and stepped back to let the other skater in, and then JJ was standing awkwardly on his doormat instead of in his building’s hallway. 

JJ slipped off his shoes and looked at Elvis. “Can I pet him? Her?”

“Him. Yes.” He looked to his dog, gave him a hand signal that was permission to stop sitting and go see the visitor. JJ crouched down and Elvis all but climbed into his lap. JJ laughed, and it broke the weirdness of the moment, at least by a little. 

“What’s his name?”

“Elvis.”

JJ laughed again, louder, and something in Seung-gil bristled. Was he making fun of him? 

“Elvis. After Sotyko?”

Seung-gil relaxed again, and he nodded, and JJ grinned at him. 

“I loved him when I was a kid. He’s great.” He stood up again, and looked Seung-gil up and down. “What did you do?” he asked suddenly, and reached for Seung-gil - for his wrapped wrist. Seung-gil snapped his hand back, and something flashed in JJ’s face. Anger? No. Hurt. 

“I sprained it,” Seung-gil said, carefully. “This morning.” He lowered his hand, looked at the floor for a moment. “Sorry, you surprised me.” When he glanced up, JJ was nodding, and the hurt had gone away, replaced by something Seung-gil couldn’t read. He wasn’t used to JJ like this - quiet and soft - and he wasn’t sure how to feel about it. “Come in,” he said, covering up his discomfort with manners. “Sit. Do you want anything? Tea? Food?”

“No, thanks, I’m all right.”

Seung-gil looked at him, considered that. “I’m going to make tea. Sit.” And he disappeared into the apartment’s little kitchen, Elvis following on his heels, hoping for a treat. When he didn’t get one, he wandered back out again.

Seung-gil stayed in the kitchen until the water boiled, until the tea had steeped. It gave him a moment to wake up, and to gather himself. He checked the clock on the microwave - he’d only been asleep about an hour. He felt like it was 3am, and possibly another month. Or another planet. Everything surprising and unfamiliar.

When he came back in, JJ was sitting carefully on the sofa, taking up as little space as possible. That was strange, too. He usually filled any space he occupied, all long limbs and big voice and personality. He was petting Elvis, who had laid his chin on their visitor’s knee. Traitor. 

Seung-gil poured the tea in silence, and then folded himself into the corner of his couch, legs drawn up in front of him like a shield. There was a silence, both of them looking at each other. JJ opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it, closed it - but Seung-gil nodded at him, telling him to go on. Because he couldn’t think of anything to say himself, so might as well let JJ fill the silence, right? Maybe he’d just talk about Canadian figure skaters or something. Something easy.

“I can’t stop thinking about what happened in Moscow.”

Okay. Not easy, then. Seung-gil, looking down into his tea, shook his head. He couldn’t either. But when he looked back up at JJ, his expression was sharp. “Does your fiancée know you’re here?”

That provoked a frown. At least that was familiar - Seung-gil was good at bothering people by being blunt. “Yes, actually. She’s the one who told me to come.”

“But she’s your soulmate.”

“No. I thought that was pretty darn clear.”

Seung-gil sucked on his lower lip, looking across at JJ, who was still perched stiffly, one hand absently stroking through Elvis’s fur. Elvis, meanwhile, looked entirely pleased with the state of his world. He always did like attention more than Seung-gil.

“I don’t understand,” Seung-gil finally said - finally admitted. Because he didn’t. He hadn’t felt like he understood anything since Moscow. Since JJ said the words that ran across his ribs.

JJ sighed, and with it some of the tension went out of him. He sagged back into the cushions, and Seung-gil recognized something in that. The slope of his shoulders, the soft defeated breath. It reminded him of during the free skate at the Grand Prix Finals. Before Isabella had started cheering for JJ. Before he’d turned it around and won bronze.

Seung-gil felt sick again, thinking about it.

“Isabella’s not my soulmate. She’s one of my oldest friends, and I think… we both always thought… but then our words came in, and they weren’t right.” 

Seung-gil understood that - he knew that happened. Sometimes people fell in love young, before their words appeared during adolescence. Sometimes their words would appear and the next time they saw each other they’d speak, and it would be the right words, the ones on each others’ bodies. They would have been in love so young for a reason. They would have already been soulmates. But sometimes, that wasn’t what happened at all. You could fall in love without being soulmates, and when your words came in, they could tell you you were wrong - that fate didn’t think you were meant to be together forever. He couldn’t imagine how that felt. It had never occurred to him that it might matter in his life.

“But we didn’t like our words,” JJ went on after a moment, and a finger drifted over his hip. Seung-gil wondered absently if JJ had trained himself to stop doing that, like Seung-gil had trained himself not to touch his. If you touched them, people were more likely to ask to see them, and Seung-gil hadn’t liked his words either, and had hated people asking about them, or trying to catch a glimpse. “Isabella’s confused her. And mine… they seemed cruel. I was sure they would be response words, you know? When they first came in I thought it would be Isabella saying it. Saying she wasn’t interested in me - and that hurt. But that wasn’t it, so I figured, whoever it was, she’d be saying that. I’d say something, whatever I said, and she’d look at me and say ‘I’m not interested in you,’ and that would be it.”

“She,” Seung-gil said, into the pause that followed. Their eyes met briefly, and JJ shrugged.

“I just always thought… I like girls and guys, but I thought, I’ll end up with a woman, settle down, have kids. Like my parents, like almost everyone I knew. Isabella, too. She wanted kids, a family. Her words are - don’t tell anyone this?” 

Seung-gil wanted to shrug - who would he tell about a woman he’d never met? - but instead he nodded. 

“Her words are in French, and French is a gendered language, so it’s obvious a woman would be saying them. ‘Je suis très heureuse de te recontrer.’ She and I never talked about it much, but I guess we’re both bi. But we wanted what we had, together. So we decided to stay together. We did… do… love each other, even if we’re not soulmates. And there was no guarantee we’d ever meet the people, especially if we were together already. But then Moscow. Then you.”

“Me.” Seung-gil met his eyes briefly, then looked away. “But you love her.”

“Yeah, but…” He laughed shallowly, without pleasure. “I’ve been a mess. Did you see me at the Final?”

Seung-gil nodded, and wished JJ wouldn’t mention it, because the same sick feeling came over him again, and he was really starting to hate that feeling. 

“I haven’t been sleeping right, my training’s a mess, and things were weird with Isabella, so she asked me. While we were in Barcelona. And I told her. And she told me I had to come find you.” He laughed again, and it fell a little less flat. “She’s my best friend and I’ll always love her, but there’re different kinds of love, you know? She made the plane reservations for me to come here. I was such a mess I couldn’t figure it out myself.” When he looked up, Seung-gil was looking right at him, and their eyes met. “I always thought I could just ignore it, if it ever did happen, but I can’t. I had to at least come talk to you.”

Seung-gil nodded, but the eye contact was too much - he felt hot, strange. So he looked away before he managed to murmur “Me too.” He risked a glance; JJ was waiting. So he went on. “I’m a mess.” He raised his bandaged wrist as evidence, and wondered for the first time that afternoon how he looked. Probably like he’d been asleep on the couch. Hair messy. Hopefully not with drool on his face. “I can’t sleep at night. And when you struggled at the final, I felt so terrible. Sick for you. I hate it.” That made JJ wince, which wasn’t really what he’d been going for, but it was honest at least. “I thought… my words aren’t positive either. And people don’t always like me.”

“You’re not very friendly.”

Seung-gil glanced at JJ, who looked a tiny bit horrified. He probably hadn’t meant to say that - his mouth did run fast - but Seung-gil just laughed very softly, and shrugged. “No.” He ran his hand over his ribs, like he never allowed himself to do. “It’s not sure that your soulmate will like you. You might not like me. I’m…” He searched for a word, failed. Nothing seemed like the right translation of the words his teachers had used for him in school, the words his coaches and his mother had used when trying to make him different. But he finally remembered one from his English teacher, and used that. “Difficult.”

He stole another glance. JJ was just staring at him, and was silent and still for a moment. Seung-gil hadn’t known silent and still was an option for JJ. 

“Can I touch you?” JJ asked after a moment, breaking the silence.

“What?”

“Can I touch you? You didn’t want me to, earlier.”

Another silence, this time with Seung-gil staring at JJ - but then he nodded. And JJ reached out and wrapped his hand gently around Seung-gil’s ankle. His hand felt warm on the sliver of skin showing between Seung-gil’s sock and the hem of his warmup pants. “I might end up not liking you,” JJ said. “You might end up not liking me. Lots of people don’t, I’m annoying. But I feel like I want to try, at least? I want to get to know you. Do you… I mean… do you want that, too? If not, I can go.” 

Seung-gil shook his head and sat up a little - shifting just a little closer to JJ, but not pulling his ankle away from his touch, because he liked it. It felt warm and heavy and _good_ , when people’s touches usually made Seung-gil feel itchy and anxious. “The last weeks have been very bad. I want to try.”

JJ’s smile was so huge and so sudden that it make Seung-gil blink. “Really?”

“Yes.” And to his own surprise, he was smiling just a little, too. “Really.” And then he carefully wrapped his own hand over JJ’s on his ankle.

It felt like nothing he had ever felt before, the rush of warmth and excitement - it made his head swim, but he was still smiling, and JJ’s cheeks were flushed, and for the first time, he understood what the big deal was about. The big deal of soulmates, and the big deal of Jean-Jacques Leroy.


	3. Interlude

“I’m not going to call you JJ,” Seung-gil said, breaking the silence. They had been sitting together silently for several minutes, hands still touching at his ankle. 

JJ laughed, loud and giddy, and Seung-gil didn’t flinch, just grinned a little.

“Why not?”

“I don’t like it.”

“You really are difficult, aren’t you? What are you going to call me?”

Seung-gil shrugged. “Jean-Jacques?” That didn’t feel right, either. Too long, too awkward on his tongue.

“Too much, only my parents call me that, and only when I’m in trouble. How about Jean?”

Seung-gil considered that, then nodded. “Okay. Jean.”

And JJ - Jean - smiled at him, warm and soft like his touch, and it felt right.


	4. Chapter 4

Jean spent three days with Seung-gil in Korea, and then he flew home for Christmas. He’d asked if Seung-gil wanted to come along, be there when he told his family, but Seung-gil had to train for Korean nationals, which were only two weeks away. And he was glad for the excuse, really. He did want to meet JJ’s family eventually, but he knew there were a lot of them, and Isabella was very much part of the family, so they might not be sure about him.

It ended up he didn’t need to worry that much. Jean Skyped him every day, and on Christmas his phone started going off first thing in the morning - Seung-gil wouldn’t have been up at all except that he’d wanted to fit in an extra practice, and he was making breakfast in the pre-dawn light. It was still Christmas Eve in Canada, and it worried him that Jean was calling at such a weird time. He answered with a frowning “Jean?” to see his soulmate - his boyfriend, already, they’d agreed to that - grinning back at him. 

“Gilly! You won’t _believe_ what just happened.”

He hated that nickname, but it was a warm kind of hate. “What?”

The phone flipped around, to show Isabella and a woman Seung-gil had never seen before. She had darker skin than Jean - more like his father - and a wide smile. Seung-gil found it beautiful, which was a bit confusing to his early-morning brain. The women were both blushing.

“Isabella found her soulmate!! It’s MY COUSIN HELOISE.” Jean was being so loud that is maxed out the phone speakers for a moment, making Seung-gil laugh softly. That explained why he liked the woman’s smile.

“Really?”

“Yes!”

Isabella waved a little, and Seung-gil suddenly realized they could both see him. He was wearing a shirt Jean had left behind - too big, and red, with the spiky edges of a maple leaf peeking up over the edge of the video frame - and his hair wasn’t combed yet. He waved back awkwardly and said “Congratulations, I’m very happy for you,” followed immediately by “Jean, please turn me around.”

The phone spun around to show him Jean again. “You’re cute,” Jean said. “I’m glad I didn’t wake you up, I wanted you to be the first to know. Early practice?”

“Mmhm, yeah.”

“Pet Elvis for me and skate well. And Merry Christmas!”

Seung-gil laughed. “Merry Christmas.” And they hung up.

He didn’t celebrate Christmas, but Jean didn’t seem to mind at all. He was happily pulling Seung-gil into his life, even from thousands of miles away, and it still felt good. Felt right, in a way Seung-gil had never really expected things to feel.

After that, lingering worries about Isabella evaporated. She and Seung-gil talked a few times, and it was friendly, comfortable - she knew Jean so well, and seemed so happy for them, and so happy with Heloise. And Jean was happy that she was staying part of the family, and that made Seung-gil happy.

 

After the three days in Korea, they didn’t seen each other in person for a month. There were Korean nationals to think about, and then the Canadian ones. But then Seung-gil flew out to Canada, despite his coach’s protestations. He could practice there, too, he argued. And he didn’t want to be in Korea, not when he had a chance to see Jean. To continue figuring out their relationship.

He spent a week there, meeting the Leroy family, getting to know Isabella, and practicing - practicing a lot - and trying not to miss Elvis. And it was surprisingly good. He and Jean still had to get used to each other, and there were awkward moments as they figured out each other’s personalities, and how they fit together. They argued once or twice, but it was surprisingly gentle, just voicing their frustrations. By the time they met up again in Taipei for Four Continents a few weeks later, things felt settled and stable. 

 

The last time they had seen any of the other skaters from the Grand Prix series was back in December. Since then, there had been all kinds of rumors flying around, and not only about Jean and Seung-gil. 

Yuuri had apparently finally figured out what Victor had known for a year - that they were soulmates, too. (The thing about being blackout drunk when you say your first words to your soulmate, is that it tends to cause confusion later on.) And now it was all over Victor’s social media, so everyone knew. 

There were rumors about Yuri and Otabek, too, but those had gone unconfirmed. Jean said something had obviously happened with them in Barcelona, but he didn’t know exactly what, and Otabek wouldn’t talk to him about it, which was pretty normal for Jean’s oldest friend in the skating world.

Jean and Seung-gil fell somewhere in between the two. They hadn’t said anything publicly, but they weren’t exactly avoiding the subject, either. Jean had told Otabek. Both their families knew. But they wanted to tell at least a few more of their skating friends before going public, and Four Continents was the perfect opportunity.

 

Not that they were really given a chance to make a big announcement. They managed to get in a little time together after they both flew in, and spent the night in Jean’s hotel room, sleeping peaceful and happy beside each other. Then they went off to do their own training routines, and reunited at the practice rink after lunch - and as soon as they smiled and said hi, there was Phichit, bouncing on the edge of their peripheral vision.

“Yes?” Seung-gil asked, and Phichit grinned at them. 

“So….?”

He was loud enough that several other skaters turned to look. Seung-gil felt Jean’s hand on his back, and he leaned into the touch, giving permission. Jean’s arm wrapped around his shoulder, pulling Seung-gil close to his side as he crowed “Soulmates!!!” It was so loud that it echoed back to them from the rafters of the rink, and Seung-gil blushed, and laughed slightly, head down.

“Oh my GOSH” Phichit exclaimed, and took what had to be about fifteen photos. “I’ll send these to you. You haven’t announced it yet? Are you planning on it?”

Seung-gil looked up at Jean, who was smiling down at him. “Yes,” he responded, because Jean seemed to be letting him answer. “Soon. How did you even know?”

“You left locations on on your Instagram and all your dog pictures for a week were in Montreal. And Yuuri said you two were acting weird in Moscow. Plus Jean and Isabella stopped posting about each other, and there was a woman on her Instagram suddenly…”

“That’s my cousin!” Jean announced, proudly. “So we’re still family. They only just found out, too.”

Seung-gil looked at the other skaters who had clustered around. Some looked more surprised than others. He had a feeling Phichit had been gossiping. And he couldn’t bring himself to care, because Jean was still holding him tight and they were among friendly faces. People who looked genuinely happy for them. So it was good. All was well, and he was in love.

Jean had to catch him, then, because one of his skates went out from under him as his thoughts tried to catch up with themselves. He’d wondered about it, of course: Did he love this loud, brash, handsome man? Was he going to, soon? But he had thought that maybe he would just know when he did. And he’d been right, because he did know, now.

“You okay?” Jean asked softly, holding him up by his elbows. “I know it’s a lot, we can take a break.”

Seung-gil shook his head. He was feeling a little light-headed, but that was mostly just because Jean’s eyes, locked on his, were so blue, and he loved that, too. “I’m okay.”

“You sure?”

Seung-gil nodded, and pushed a little closer, laying his hands on Jean’s hips. When he spoke it was very quiet. Just for them. “I just realized I love you.”

Jean threw his head back to laugh, but then came back in, head bowed so his hair brushed Seung-gil’s forehead. “Love you, too.” When they kissed, their little audience cheered, and it was better than any ovation Seung-gil had ever gotten. Even the crowd’s roar and Jean’s cheers when he won silver a few days later couldn’t beat it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, kudosing, commenting! 
> 
> Come find me on Twitter if you want to watch me yell about figure skating - https://twitter.com/IcyPetitsPois


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